Firenze Friends

Well, I have to admit, I was a little bit down on Florence before today. I mean, there was the thing with the five hotels/hostels, and then there's this ghost hotel, and there's just a bunch of people everywhere.... Anyways, today, and especially tonight, has improved its reputation considerably in my eyes because I made some friends.

I had planned to see all there was to see in Florence today, and I didn’t do very well. My first stop was the Uffizi. The tickets were 10 Euro, and it looked like the wait was about three hours, so I decided it wasn’t worth it. It meant I wouldn’t get to see the original David sculpture, but everybody sees that, I don't think it will crumble in despair because I didn't grace it with my gaze. Instead I crossed the river to an interesting castle-looking thing. I ended up going into a museum about an Italian antique dealer in the late 19th century. I can’t remember his name right now, but it was a pretty good museum. It was interesting, apparently he didn’t give the most important work the most prominent space, but instead used the antiques to create spaces and moods, which I thought was a little more worthwhile than simply highlighting the most famous pieces. I left the museum and climbed a hill to Piazzale Michelangelo, where I got to see a real-life replica of the David sculpture!

I continued up the hill to the cathedral at the top. On the way, I encountered an abandoned scarf sitting on a banister. I wasn’t sure what to do. I didn’t want to leave it for fear of someone else taking it, but I didn’t want to take it with me because the owner might come back looking for it. I ended up sitting with it for ten minutes, then walking with it held promiscuously in my hand. When I got all the way up to the top of the hill and into the cathedral, a man ran up to me, out of breath, and requested that I kindly return his scarf, which by this time had been moved to hanging out of my back pocket. I sheepishly obliged.

For lunch I went back down the hill and found a nice pizza place. The Italian guy who served me asked me where I was from, and hearing my reply, he said, “America number one!” When I paid, he said in his best Boston accent, “Four bucks. I like bucks, not euro.” He was a character, and he gave me some free wine. Well, he gave everybody free wine, but I think my free wine was special. I went back for another pizza in about an hour. We had a brief Italian conversation: he said something about ‘economica’ in America, and I shook my head and said, “Si, molto malo.” Yes, very bad. I think that’s probably a world-record for fastest fluency in a new language, at about five days.

I called my Dad today. We talked for fifteen minutes and it cost me six pounds. Very expensive.

Tonight was really great. I returned to the hotel to take a short break, and I went back out around seven with the intention of sitting in front of Il Duomo and drawing it. Though I have no special gift for it, I find drawing relaxing. So I found a good sitting spot and got to work. I quickly realized I picked a pretty difficult landscape (see attached picture) of three different complex buildings, but I think I did a halfway decent job. The piazza was pretty busy while I drew, so there was always someone looking over my shoulder. It was unnerving at times, but its easy to lose yourself while you draw, so other times I was able to ignore them. Some people complimented me, and it was nice to talk to people.

The first high point of the night came when a girl came up to me and blurted something in Italian. I stared at her and she said, “Tu sei turistica?” or something like that, and I said yes. Then she walked away. She returned about five minutes later with a whole gaggle of Italians, and they all crowded around me. There were about eight of them, and they surrounded me, sitting on the ground in the middle, bombarding me with questions. Only one of them spoke a helpful amount of English, so there was a lot of translating and confusion, but eventually they invited me to walk around with them, which I was happy to do. We walked around for about a half hour or forty-five minutes, while they asked me questions about what I was doing in Italy and laughed at each other while we tried to speak the other’s language. We found some common interests, and one of the guys told me it was his dream to buy a Harley-Davidson and ride it around the United States. I got some homework too, to practice saying “triangolo” before I go to bed tonight, because I just can’t roll my r the right way at the beginning. There was a lot of them ignoring the fact I don’t speak Italian and giving it a try anyway, and me yelling “Non capisco!” I don’t understand! One of the girls told me I looked like Elvis (I swear I’m not making this up). It was a lot of fun, they were nice people. Sadly, we said our goodbyes when they had to go to bed (they were in high school and their parents were strict), and I returned to my warm patch of cobblestone.

I had been sitting for another ten minutes or so when a whole classful of children walked by behind their teacher. One of the students spotted my drawing and instantly the whole class was leaning over me trying to get a look at what I was doing. They were probably about seven or eight years old, and they didn’t speak a word of English and I hardly speak a word of Italian. Their teacher translated for us while they asked me what my name was, where I was from, what my job was, what my favorite sport was. The teacher was trying to usher them away the whole time but they were persistently friendly. As they were dragged away they were yelling their favorite sports to me, “Baseball!” and “Basketball!” and acting out hitting a homerun. This encounter was one of my favorite parts of Italy.

Here’s a picture of the scene I was drawing, a haircut I gave my gelato today, a couple men working on a sidewalk portrait, and the David replica.